Chapter 130 Chapter 130

Chapter 130 Chapter 130

The van was loud with the corner table configuration processing the competition in the specific way of people who had been emotionally invested since September and were now in the aftermath of the thing they'd been waiting for.

Lily was in the back giving Ryan a technical breakdown of the hollow grinds contribution to the Lutz execution.

Ryan was listening with the focused attention of someone who understood approximately thirty percent of what was being said and was not going to admit the percentage.

Camille beside him was listening with the focused attention of someone who understood approximately ninety percent and was making small margin notes in her notebook.

Sofía was beside me. Not saying anything. Just there. The way she had been all semester. The way that turned out to be the thing regardless of what else it also was.

I said: yellow.

She said: the most optimistic color.

I said: you were right.

She said: I usually am.

I said: the long conversation is finished.

She said: yes.

I said: and now.

She said: and now the forward from it.

I said: yes.

She said: the corner table.

I said: yes.

She said: the east side acai bowl.

I said: significantly better.

She said: obviously.

She said: I have one more thing to tell you.

I said: what.

She said: the seating chart for next season is already drafted.

I said: next season.

She said: sophomore year. Regional qualifier. I'm planning ahead.

I said: it's February.

She said: planning requires lead time.

I said: Sofía.

She said: yes.

I said: thank you.

She said: for the seating chart.

I said: for the semester.

She was quiet for a moment.

She said: thank you for the corner table.

I said: you claimed the corner table.

She said: I claimed it for a reason.

I said: I know.

She said: the reason became the real thing.

I said: yes.

She said: both things.

I said: always.

She made the inaudible noise.

I almost made it back.

It was the closest I had come.

At Harlow the van emptied and the campus received us back with the indifference of a place that did not know what had happened and did not need to because the people inside it knew.

My father and James went for coffee.

My mother came to the dorm with Bria who had not been at the competition because someone had to hold the room and the room had been held all day with Bria's book and her presence and the specific grace of that. They talked for an hour.

My mother and Bria, who had been my person at Harlow before I knew I needed a person, talking in the room that had been the room all semester.

I listened.

I ate the pasta my mother had brought in a container from Crestfall because she had made it in the morning before the bus and kept it warm in a bag the entire journey. My grandmother's recipe. The cream sauce.

I ate it on my floor.

The correct location.

At nine PM Declan texted: rink is open.

I said: ten minutes.

He said: coffees are ready.

I said: you're already there.

He said: obviously.

The rink at nine-fifteen on a competition evening was empty. The overnight lights. The surface from the afternoon still perfect.

He was on the bench with two terrible vending machine coffees.

I sat beside him. He handed me mine. I took it.

We looked at the ice.

He said: do you want to skate?

I said: not yet.

He said: okay.

We sat. The cold air. The specific quiet. The rink being itself regardless of what had happened in it and outside it and around it all semester.

I said: I've been coming to rinks since I was three years old.

He said: yes.

I said: I've loved every one of them.

He said: yes.

I said: this one is different.

He said: how?.

I said: because of everything that happened in it.

I said: because of October and the wrong lane and the commission and the essay and the network and the investigation and the forty-three athletes and fifteen countries and thirty-three years.

I said: because of the corner and the counter and the forty-seven cheek kisses and the list.

He said: the list.

I said: yes.

He said: said at the fork.

I said: yes.

He said: and again at the competition venue.

I said: yes.

He said: and now.

I said: and now.

I looked at the ice.

I said: Declan.

He said: yeah.

I said: I'm going to skate.

He said: okay.

I said: not the program.

He said: what then?

I said: whatever I want.

He said: that's allowed.

I said: I know.

I laced up and stepped onto the ice.

And I skated. Not drills. Not elements. Not the program or the Lutz or the combination spin. Just skating.

Long easy laps in the overnight-lit rink with the coffees on the bench and the person at the far end watching.

Always watching. Always counting.

I skated for twenty minutes and then I came to the boards and he was there.

He said: that was.

I said: yes.

He said: that was you skating.

I said: yes.

He said: not the Zara Torres who competes and testifies and publishes essays and runs operations and manages investigations.

I said: just me.

He said: just you on ice.

I said: yeah, mine before anyone else.

He kissed me at the boards in the rink.

At nine forty-two PM on the evening of the biggest competition of my life.

With terrible vending machine coffee getting cold on the bench behind him.

The everyday kind and the proper kind simultaneously because we had stopped distinguishing between significant and ordinary.

Because when you were this far inside something real the distinction stopped meaning what it used to mean.

All of it was significant.

All of it was ordinary.

All of it was ours

I pulled back.

I said: the coffee.

He said: it's cold.

I said: it was cold when you made it.

He said: yes.

I said: from October.

He said: cold vending machine coffees from October.

I said: the beginning.

He said: yes.

I said: thank you.

He said: for the coffee.

I said: for the far end.

He said: always.

I said: from October.

He said: from the pool.

I said: forty minutes at the door.

He said: and then you didn't come back.

I said: and then I came back eventually.

He said: yes.

I said: in the van to Meridian.

He said: yes.

I said: and now.

He said: everything.

I said: yes.

I stepped off the ice and unlaced.

We sat on the bench with the cold coffees and the overnight-lit rink and the ice that had been mine since before any of them found it. We sat for a while. Not talking. Just in it.

The way you were in things that had stopped requiring management.

At ten-fifty-eight I said: we should go.

He said: the rink closes at midnight.

I said: I know. We should go before midnight.

He said: not because we have to.

I said: because I want to go home.

He said: home.

I said: the dorm room. The floor. Bria's lamp. The radiator. The photographs on the nightstand.

He said: that's home.

I said: this semester I made it home.

He said: yes.

I said: before that it was a room. Now it's the place where the floor nights happened and the essay was written and the list was figured out. It's the room where the semester lived.

He said: yes.

I said: I want to sleep in it.

He said: go.

I said: you have the far end tomorrow.

He said: the rink is open at six.

I said: obviously.

He said: six-fifteen to be consistent.

I said: the original time.

He said: from October.

I said: yes.

I stood up.

I picked up my bag.

At the rink door I turned around.

He was still on the bench.

Looking at the ice. The way I looked at it sometimes. Like someone having a conversation with something that talked back.

I said: Declan.

He turned.

I said: you're going to be at the far end my entire career.

He said: yes.

I said: counting.

He said: always.

I said: from one.

He said: always from one.

I said: every morning.

He said: every morning.

I said: the beginning.

He said: yes.

I said: mine.

He said: and mine.

I said: ours.

He said: yes.

I said: before any of it.

He said: still.

I said: still.

I went home.